Grave Situation (51 page)

Herb never realized being shot
would hurt so much. Searing pain ripped through his chest, through
his left shoulder. It was hard to breathe. His left arm was
immobilized; he couldn’t move it. The impacts of the bullets from
Allan’s pistol had knocked him back against the door. Two more from
David and Sam’s guns had struck his shoulder, spinning him around.
Dazed, spots before his eyes, he slumped into a sitting
position.

With great effort he raised his
right hand to his chest, touched the sticky wetness there. He
swallowed once, painfully.

“Call an
ambulance
,” he heard someone
say.

Herb lifted his head and saw the
three men only feet away now. If he could reach out he would be
able to touch them. The young looking cop next to the Chief put his
pistol away and keyed his mike, speaking into it in hushed
tones.

You’re too
late
, Herb wanted to tell him.
They won’t make it in time.

He could feel a numbness spreading
throughout his body. Color started to leach from everything around
him, fading to a dull gray. Silence fell, eerie in its
totality.

Within seconds the three men before
him began to disappear, lost in a brilliant wash of white that
seemed to vibrate with energy. Amidst this strange new place he
could hear someone’s voice calling out to him. At first it was only
faint, then with increasing clarity, he realized the voice belonged
to a female—soothing, almost angelic in tone.

Maybe his mother.

More than anything now, he hoped it
was.

Is this
heaven?
he wondered, and then knew no
more.

Holstering his pistol, Allan
watched Herb’s head sag to his chest, eyes fixed open. With two
fingers Allan checked the neck for a pulse. In death, Herb’s
features had softened.

At peace, Allan decided. The man
seemed to be at peace.

He took a deep breath. This marked
the first time in his career that he had to use lethal force
against another human being. As much as he hated the man for what
he had done, Allan still felt guilt mingle with grief and
apprehension. Every nerve in his body seemed to be afire, leaving
him shaky, sick. The after-effect, he knew, of the adrenaline rush
to his system. He gave himself a few minutes to recover.

“Are you all right, son?” David
asked him.

“I’m fine,” he answered, despite
feeling otherwise.

He looked up at David and regarded
the redness in his face, the beads of sweat on his forehead. David
still clenched his pistol with a white-knuckled grip.

Concerned, Allan
asked, “How are
you
feeling, Chief?”

David puffed his cheeks, exhaling
softly. In a feeble mimicry of his everyday manner, he said, “A bit
shaken. But I’ll be all right.”

Allan stared at him. “Have you ever
experienced an incident like this?”

“Never.” David finally put away
his weapon. “Never in thirty-six years.”

“And you, Sam?”

The constable gave a little shrug.
“Same as the Chief. I’ll be okay. Never thought this was going to
happen.”

“I’ll call in a stress counselor
for us to speak to,” said David.

Allan nodded his assent. He knelt
down and picked up the revolver. Even without opening the cylinder,
he could see that the gun was empty. Once more, he looked at Herb
and shook his head. All of this was hard for him to
process.

“There were no bullets in his
gun,” he told David and Sam. “Explains why I didn’t see a muzzle
flash.”

For a moment, they were all
quiet.

“Suicide by cop,” Sam murmured.
“Never thought I’d see it myself.”

David wiped a hand over his brow.
“We didn’t know the gun wasn’t loaded. He made a threat to shoot
and we had to respond.”

“He had no intention of being
taken alive.” Allan set down the revolver. “He probably had a
desire to end his own life, but couldn’t bring himself to do it.”
Suddenly, he saw an image of himself at home, sitting on the sofa
with a gun to his own head. Troubled by this memory, he paused
before speaking again. “Perhaps it was easier for us to do the job
for him.”

He rose and walked to the edge of
the lawn and sat down, weary, detached from his surroundings. At
the edge of his awareness he heard distant sirens. He closed his
eyes and opened them again, settling his gaze on the graveled drive
before him.

He brooded about Cathy Ambré, her
sister, Trixy, and Brad Hawkins. Finally, he thought of their
parents and the lives, forever changed, that each of them would
have to face.

Allan breathed in. He knew he could
do nothing to relieve their ineradicable sorrow. Perhaps he could
give them some sense of closure now that the killer had been
found.

Murder was the ultimate sin;
catching the person responsible was the ultimate redemption. Allan
had always believed that. Any other time this would have made him
proud.

But not now.

Tomorrow he would be back in
Halifax. Before him awaited more tragedies, more sleepless nights,
more heartbreaking notifications of death to loved ones.

Do I really want to continue like
this? Can I actually endure much more?

In his heart he knew what must be
done.

51

Halifax, May 25

3:16 p.m.

Dr. Judy Galloway looked directly
into Allan’s eyes. “When you think back to the shooting yesterday,
what aspect of the incident affected you most?”

“That I was forced to take the
life of another human being,” Allan answered.

“Would you say that was the worst
part?”

“Yes, most definitely.”

They sat in David’s office, just
the two of them. It was part of the critical incident interview
that had been arranged after the shooting of Herb
Matteau.

Galloway appeared to be around
Allan’s age, with perceptive blue eyes, blonde hair and subtle
makeup. She wore a tailored, red business suit, and she spoke in a
quiet, level voice tinged with a distinct Newfoundland
accent.

“Was this the first time you had
to use lethal force?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“If you were to watch a videotape
of the incident, only your twin brother was involved, how would you
rate his actions?”

Allan paused for a long moment.
“Ten out of ten.”

Galloway studied his expression
with a cool curiosity. “That’s a high mark.”

“Yes.”

“What was the best part of the
incident?”

“Best part?”

“Yes.”

Allan spread his hands. “That
neither me or my partners were seriously hurt.”

“Were you functioning normally
before the incident?”

Allan stared at the desk between
them. “I’ll admit I was angry.”

“With whom?”

“The suspect.”

“Why?”

Allan looked up. “Because he had
murdered four people and shattered the lives of three
families.”

Galloway wrote something down. “As
the shooting took place, did you experience any perceptual
distortions?”

“Everything seemed to slow
down.”

“Did you experience tunnel
vision?”

“Yes.”

“How about amplified or diminished
sounds?”

“My shots sounded like a cap gun.
Not as loud as they should’ve been.”

“When you saw the suspect bringing
his gun up toward you, what went through your mind?”

“That I was going to be shot.”
Allan breathed in. “I heard of officers, when being shot at,
suddenly wonder if they had unplugged the toaster before leaving
home in the morning. But nothing weird like that happened to me. I
really didn’t have time to think, only react.”

“How did you feel right after the
shooting?”

“Shaken.”

Galloway tilted her head. Looking
into her face, Allan felt himself being appraised.

“How did you feel when you found
out the gun wasn’t loaded?”

Allan crossed his arms. “Guilty.
Regretful.”

“Did you second
guess your decision to shoot?”

“No. From my vantage point, I
couldn’t tell if the gun was loaded or not.”

“So you don’t blame
yourself?”

“No.”

“Were you still angry with the
suspect at that point?”

“Yes, a bit.”

“Why?”

“Because the man had used us to
take the easy way out.”

“So you don’t feel justice was
served?”

“No.”

Galloway sat back. Finger to her
lips she seemed to consider his answer.

“It’s been twenty-four hours since
the shooting,” she said. “In that time, what physical responses
have you experienced?”

“I feel tired.” Allan moved his
shoulders a fraction. “That’s all.”

“Did you sleep well last
night?”

“No, I didn’t.”

Galloway continued to write. “Were
you preoccupied with what happened at the shooting?”

Allan shook his head. “Not really.
I thought about it, but not obsessively.”

But then I thought about a lot of
things, he wanted to add.

“How do you feel
about
yourself,
Lieutenant?”

That gave Allan pause.
“Myself?”

“Yes. Do you feel good about
yourself? Are you happy in your life?”

Allan winced inside, suddenly
uncomfortable. He contemplated his answer in pained
silence.

No, he wanted to tell her. I’m not
happy. I feel alone. I feel troubled. I cling to a forlorn hope
that my life will improve in some way even when I don’t believe it
will.

“I feel quite good about myself,”
he lied and then found himself unable to look at
Galloway.

“If, in the coming days,” she told
him, “you begin to experience vivid flashbacks or nightmares; if
you experience any increased feelings of anxiety, anger or
irritability; or if you find yourself becoming estranged from your
family and friends, be sure to call me at once.”

She gave him her business
card.

Allan stared at it.

“I will,” he said at
last.

“I would like to see you again in
a week, Lieutenant.”

Allan looked at her. “To see if I’m
showing symptoms of something?”

Galloway nodded. “To see how you’ve
been coping. You need to realize that you’re human. It’s normal to
feel things.”

Now, three hours after the
interview, as Allan slowed his car for the lineup of traffic at the
tollbooths for the MacDonald Bridge, he glanced at Galloway’s card
on the dash. Much of the trip from Acresville had taken place
without his awareness; preoccupied with his interview with her, he
had driven mainly on instinct.

Perhaps he should call Galloway
again to discuss the other problems that he’d been having—the
difficult time he had since Melissa left with Brian; the loneliness
of being single again; the job that was taking its toll on
him.

Before he could do that however,
there remained a more pressing issue at hand.

The car ahead of him drove off as
the gate lifted and Allan pulled up to the coin bucket, tossing in
three quarters. He crossed the MacDonald Bridge into Halifax,
bothered by something he couldn’t put his finger on, filled with a
sense of uncertainty and premonition.

The day was dark, overcast. A light
but steady rain fell. In the clouds were flashes of lightning,
faint rumblings of thunder, the weather strangely mimicking the
dreary mood he was in.

The traffic moved at a snail’s
pace. It took Allan fifteen minutes to reach the home of Frank and
Barbara Hawkins. When they didn’t answer their door, he phoned
them, and left a voice message, asking them to call him as soon as
possible. He had important information regarding the case of their
son, Brad.

Allan then drove
to an affluent neighborhood in the south-end of Halifax to confront
the melancholy task of visiting Philip and Carol
Ambr
é once more.

Philip answered the door. He looked
weary and haggard, even more so than he had at Cathy’s funeral. His
clothes hung loosely off his frame, as if he were withering away
from the inside out. When he saw Allan, a brief glint of surprise
appeared in his eyes.

“Lieutenant Stanton. I never
thought I’d see you again.”

Allan looked into
Philip’s ravaged face. “Hello, Mister
Ambr
é. I have some news to tell
you.”